Gearing Up for 2020

Hi friends!

Now that Christmas and New Year are coming to a close, we are gearing up for the 2020 growing season. I am personally ready for warm sunny weather and greenery again. Chris on the other had, loves the cool weather where he’s not sweating. I can’t seem to agree yet. ;)

We have started taking inventory of our seed supply and making lists of new things we want to grow, stuff we don’t plan to grow at all, and new fields of flowers and sweet corn still in the planning process. Our goal is to have a few acres of sweet corn and a u-pick flower field!

As we head into the new year, we can’t help but look far into the future when it comes to planning. We will eventually be adding another field of red raspberries and 5 more rows of black raspberries. They were a hit this year! Our CSA program will continue this year as well as selling to some local cafes, and going to the farmers market. We will be at Sugarcreek again but will also be looking for a larger Saturday market possibly in Grove City. All of this is still so up in the air as we begin to plan out the year. I always suggest signing up for our newsletter so you can stay up to date and not miss a thing.

Our big green house is still under construction but we plan to have that completed before summer so we can use it for tomatoes.
Xenia township also agreed to bring and dump leaves collected from the city for us to compost. This will provide a rich compost to enhance our soil making growing even better. We are thankful to Xena Twp for doing this. We will now just turn over the leaves every so often, and in about 6 months it will be beautiful dirt.

We are hoping and praying we do not have another spring like last year. The constant rain last spring put such a hold on things, and pushed us back about 4 weeks with growing. A lot of farmers in the area were suffering from this. Having both hoop houses will help.

Next priority will be pruning. All of those blueberries and blackberries have to be pruned by hand, one by one. Most of our winter and early spring is spent doing this. It’s tedious but must be done. Only good thing to look forward to is after pruning is complete, berries come next!!!

We cannot wait to see what 2020 brings us as we continue to grow and expand the farm, reach more of our community and build relationships with people.
As always thanks for your continued support year after year.

Chris & Sarah
Berryhill

Microgreens: Explained

You may have seen this green trimmings pop up in the produce section at your local grocery. Or maybe you’ve seen them labeled “shoots” at the farmer’s market. You’re probably wondering who in the world eats these grass clippings and what in the world they’re for! Let me help explain:

They are called microgreens.

A microgreen falls in between a sprout and a baby plant. They are cut before the plants’ first true leaves appear. Microgreens are typically around 1.5 - 3 inches tall. They are extremely nutrient dense and good for you.

Microgreens are 10x more nutritious than the plant in it’s mature form. For example, radish microgreens contain 10x the amount of vitamins and nutrients than eating a radish alone. They may be small, but they pack a punch in the health department! They are full of antioxidants, iron, and many other nutrients.

So, you grab a small bag of them. Now what?

Microgreens can be used in SO many ways! The most common ways to eat them are in salads, wraps and on sandwiches, but people also love to use them as garnishes on pizza, soup, omelets, and many other dishes.
They can also be blended into a smoothie, juiced, or my personal favorite, on top of a burger or BLT! Anywhere you use lettuce, microgreens can be used as well.
They are super tasty but not overpowering. I highly encourage you to give them a try. They’re very good for you and will make your dishes extra pretty ;)

Microgreens also have a long shelf life. They will last anywhere from 10-20 days in the fridge if stored properly. (Keep a napkin inside the container to soak up moisture).

So the next time you come across some microgreens or pea/sunflower shoots, give them a try! And come back and let us know what you think! Better yet, join our CSA program where we ill be including microgreens in many of the boxes this season!
Sign up HERE

Spring Farm Tour

Join us Saturday morning, May 25th for a special tour of the farm. This will be your chance to tour the brand new growing field (and see the size difference from the new field to our previous “garden field”), tour the new greenhouse and what kind of production is happening in early spring, you’ll quite possibly even get to pick a few goodies to taste test for yourself! AND there may even be a flock of sheep out in the pasture that you can pet. Still working on that one :)

We will walk through the berry fields and show you what it looks like this time of year, about 6 weeks prior to opening day. A lot changes in those short 6 weeks! Raspberries are small, almost nonexistent plants at that point, blackberries are usually still covered in beautiful white flowers, and the blueberries begin dropping all of their flowers while the bees are at work.

Mark your calendars for May 25th! Time is still TBD.